I Stayed At Home, Therefore, And Read, And Would Have Written; But I
Had Already Suffered Too Much From My Poetical Productions, Which Had
Generally Involved Me In Some Ridiculous Scrape.
I gradually acquired a
rusty look, and had a straightened, money-borrowing air, upon which the
world began to shy me.
I have never felt disposed to quarrel with the
world for its conduct. It has always used me well. When I have been
flush, and gay, and disposed for society, it has caressed me; and when
I have been pinched, and reduced, and wished to be alone, why, it has
left me alone, and what more could a man desire? - Take my word for it,
this world is a more obliging world than people generally represent it.
Well, sir, in the midst of my retrenchment, my retirement, and my
studiousness, I received news that my uncle was dangerously ill. I
hastened on the wings of an heir's affection to receive his dying
breath and his last testament. I found him attended by his faithful
valet, old Iron John; by the woman who occasionally worked about the
house; and by the foxy-headed boy, young Orson, whom I had occasionally
hunted about the park.
Iron John gasped a kind of asthmatical salutation as I entered the
room, and received me with something almost like a smile of welcome.
The woman sat blubbering at the foot of the bed; and the foxy-headed
Orson, who had now grown to be a lubberly lout, stood gazing in stupid
vacancy at a distance.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 208 of 433
Words from 55388 to 55648
of 115667
